VAF honored as top innovator

VAF is among the Top 100, and will receive its award from Ranga Yogeshwar at the German SME Summit in Essen.

VAF made it into the Top 100 thanks to its impressive success in innovation. VAF produces specialized machines for car manufacturing, such as assembly lines for engines, transmissions and running gear. For example, VAF has developed a workpiece carrier which staff at companies purchasing the equipment can configure to their own requirements, whether on a standing or sitting assembly line. VAF represents an important contribution to customized, ergonomic workstation design.

The company's success in the Top 100 competition is a very special achievement: "We see winning the Top 100 accolade as a reward for our joint efforts in the company, but being innovative means not resting on your laurels. We may be celebrating today, but tomorrow we will be back at work experimenting with new ideas", said Hermann Stark (CEO).

What Top 100 stand for:

"The Top 100 companies are extremely adept at translating their ideas into market successes, a hurdle at which many other companies fall. Strong team spirit and efficient processes enable the leading innovators to overcome this challenge, and they often also involve customers and external partners at an early stage of development," said Professor Franke.

There was a challenging selection process before the companies made it into the Top 100. Innovation researcher Professor Nikolaus Franke and his team from the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business examined applications from 247 companies. The study focused on innovations management and successful innovation. A glance at the statistics demonstrates the high standard of this year's Top 100, 62 per cent of the Top 100 are family owned. Innovative capability has resulted in remarkable success for the companies, with 82 per cent of them exceeding the mean growth rate in their sector between 2011 and 2013 – on average by an impressive 22 percentage points. The proportion of their revenue attributable to innovative improvements and products new to the market was 41.6 per cent, compared with an average of just 6.8 per cent for all SMEs in Germany.